Captain's Code
by SeeThroughEmu
Summary: As a nerdy, slightly socially awkward, quaffle-hurling Ravenclaw, I was pretty sure I could survive anything with my trusty books and broomstick. But when another year at Hogwarts brings quidditch captaincy, Prefect Duties, and a spot on the Tutor Board. I'm going to need all of my wits about me to keep from going under. Rated T just in case.


Author's note:

Hey, this is my first story on here, so I'd like any and all comments you might have. I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update this, but I'll try to establish a pattern some time and not leave you guys hanging.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

~~/~~/~~

Chapter 1: 'Bad First Impressions' is my Middle Name

~~/~~/~~

Boarding the Hogwarts Express was never really the excitement-filled send off that most families seemed to have. Families would hug and kiss, and I'd just arrive alone with an overstuffed trunk of everything I'd have for the next school year.

I wasn't an orphan with a sob story or anything; I'd just flown in from Chicago the night before and had no family across the pond. Knowing that the Atlantic Ocean separated me from my family, not just a few hundred miles, always weighed upon me as I boarded the train alone.

Up until fourth year I had been schooled in magic by my father at our home in America, yet in some sudden epiphany, he had decided that I ought to go to a proper wizarding school, with y'know, other witches and wizards. Something about how I needed to develop my social skills with people my own age.

My mother, who was practically the muggley-est of muggles, was immediately on board with me going to the 'swanky, English boarding school' that I had apparently been invited to. I honestly had no idea how my acceptance letter had been delivered _by owl_, and yet my mother had absolutely no problem with just accepting that 'British people are just so weird, aren't they?'

She hadn't even batted her eyes when we were suggested to buy an owl of our own. Her objection to getting an owl was not 'why would you ever need and owl?' but 'oh, owls probably can't fly across the Atlantic. Darn.' She had just let my father take me to Diagon Alley, which she though was some shopping center he liked. Didn't question the gigantic potion's cauldron we had bought or the weird uniform that consisted of _robes_.

Platform 9 and 3/4 was warm and buzzing with activity as I boarded the train. I played with the hem of my shirt, knowing I would soon be trading my old and worn blue t-shirt and cargo shorts for the Hogwarts robes. It was always weird to go from normal muggle clothing into wizard robes, but there was a certain comfortable weight to Hogwarts robes that made life without wearing them even weirder.

I was worming my way through the mess of students who had already boarded when someone wrapped their arms around my shoulders from behind in a quick hug and promptly covered my eyes saying, "Guess who."

"I rolled my eyes, "Cho, there's no one else on this train who would pounce on me like that."

"I don't know," Cho shot back, "Maybe it's Flint trying to take down the enemy Quidditch Captain. You know how those Slytherins are."

"Yeah, and he's going to make me guess who it is in a girly, high pitched voice too." Then I realized what she said, "Hey, wait, how did you know I was Captain?"

"You act as if they would actually give the position to Avery."

"Hey, Tom is very good at Quidditch," I protested, backing up our Keeper. I didn't want to be the cause of a rift in our team. And it wasn't that far fetched, he actually was good at what he did.

"Sure, when he's not to busy trying to hit on the other team's Chasers."

I had to stifle a laugh, "Okay, so he's a bit distracted sometimes-"

"-all the time-" Cho interjected, putting a hand to her forehead dramatically.

"-but honestly, I was shocked when I received the Captains badge in the mail. I just hope I do a good job of it.

"I know you will. So what if all the other captains have had at least a year of experience? Who cares if Gryffindor and Slytherin trounced us last year? Who cares if our star chaser and captain-slash-beater graduated?"

"Yeah," I muttered, "Really boosting my confidence there." I tried to smile jokingly, but it came out as more of a grimace.

"Come on, now," Cho patted my shoulder, "You'll do fine. Why don't you come over to my compartment? We can talk tryouts and filling the vacant positions."

"Sorry," I said, "as much as I'd like to agonize over the loss of Davies and Prime, I should probably get going to the Prefects Cabin to get instructions."

Cho rolled her eyes, "Seriously? You're a Prefect _and_ Quidditch Captain as a Fifth year? You're just unbelievable."

I grinned impishly, "What can I say? Teacher's love the nerdy kids."

"Well go on then," she yelled, gesturing dramatically and starting to turn away, "Go seduce Percy Weasley with your mad brains!"

I sighed in exasperation and buried my face in my palms. As soon as I looked up, however, I was greeted with the sight of Fred and George Weasley raising their eyebrows suggestively. Of course, just my luck that Cho has no concern for my reputation. How will I ever be taken seriously if Fred and George are spreading around that I'm trying to seduce their brother?

"For the record, I'm not really trying to seduce your brother," I hastily assured the twins before I jogged towards the front of the train. Great, not even the first day of classes, and I've already embarrassed myself.

~~/~~/~~

Soon I burst into the Prefects compartment, glad to be in a place where there would surely be other nerdy 5th to 7th years, only to see Percy Weasley and Penelope Clearwater in an empty compartment. Making out. And completely engrossed in their 'experience', shall we say.

In hindsight, I probably could have surreptitiously left then and nothing would have happened, but of course, I was not nearly as discrete as I could have been.

"Oh..." I said, trying to thing of something more intelligent to say. I was a Ravenclaw, dammit, I should be able to think my way out of any situation. But evidently, that only worked for spells and classes, because I was stuck there, opening and closing my mouth, trying to say something and failing to say anything.

The couple turned around slowly, Penelope smiling guiltily and Percy horror-stricken. "Hi, Forester, Right?" Penelope asked, "You're a little early, aren't you?" I'd seen her a few times around the commons room, and I guess Hogwarts was a small enough school for her to know me.

"Yeah, uh, sorry about that. I'll come back later. When the meeting's scheduled..." I said, "Sorry." I coughed awkwardly and slammed the door with more force than was strictly necessary. My cheeks flushed, and my entire face felt warm. Yup, just how I wanted my first impression as Prefect to go.

I wandered aimlessly along the train, trying to forget the mental scarring I had just witnessed. Seriously, both of them were once an over-eager 5th year Prefect, they should know that some kid's going to show up 30 minutes early. Just my luck that I was that over-eager 5th year Prefect.

I hadn't even known they were dating or anything. But I guess, since Cho was my wonderful source of gossip and I hadn't heard about this, that the rest of the school hadn't either.

So I had blackmail, should I ever need it. As useful as blackmail was, however, I would have gladly traded it for having not seen the Head Girl and Boy making out in a train compartment. But I knew one thing, I would never be showing up to and Prefect meetings early ever again. Not if that's what I had coming, it was just way too weird.

~~/~~/~~

After having walked for about a minute and shaken off my initial shock, I quite literally ran into the very group I'd been trying to avoid: the Quidditch Captains.

Namely I ran into Oliver Woods, knocking him to the ground with me and somehow getting our legs completely twisted together. If it were Cho, she'd say "smooth moves, Forester," and we'd both have a laugh over it, but I barely knew this guy. And had basically just accidentally tackled him to the ground. Wow, great first impression, in fact, I'd give it a hearty 3/10.

"Oh, Annie! just the person we're looking for," Cedric Diggory started to help me up, smiling, in that overly sincere, oh-so-Hufflepuff manner. I mean, seriously, if I hadn't spent the entire last year as his Transfiguration partner, I would have thought he was being sarcastic. "We heard you made Quidditch Captain!"

"Hey, Ced," I smiled back, weakly but nonetheless there, "Yeah…. I did. Cool stuff." In my defense I had just gotten the wind knocked out of me from falling to the ground and was a bit flustered. But really? That was the best I could come up with? I l took this chance to size up the other Quidditch Captains who he had been talking with previously. Both were 7supth/sup years. With Ced as a 6supth/sup year, I was going in with the least experience. I guess I already knew this, because all of them had been Captain last year, but it was still disheartening have undeniable proof that I didn't measure up to the other Captains.

I may be ahead of the curve and able to skip ahead with schoolwork, but Quidditch was a whole other beast. I already had the sinking feeling in my gut that this year was going to be defeat after defeat after defeat.

Wood was still on the floor, rubbing his one elbow, but Flint was eyeing me as if he was a dragon looking at a lamb. I decided that if I was going to be brutally murdered at Quidditch, I might as well meet my murderers. "Uh, Hi. Oliver Wood and Marcus Flint, correct?"

Flint smirked, "Yeah… We are. Cool stuff," he mimicked.

"Shut up," Cedric nudged Flint in the ribs, "You should play nice, 'cause she could completely mess up any hopes at getting good tutoring you might have had, and we all know that you're going to want it."

Wood spoke up, "She's on the tutor board?" Okay, the first words out of his mouth weren't ones threatening murder or torture, so I took it as a good sign.

"Out of House Secretary of it, actually. So if you're going to the tutor board, you really will be going to me." I threw in, absent-minded. I was still recovering from the embarrassment of saying 'cool stuff'. I was pretty proud of that accomplishment though, and tutoring was something I could stand to talk about. I was good at tutoring, I knew what I was doing there, and at least if they though I was a horrible Quidditch Captain, there was something I was good at.

Ravenclaw ran the tutoring service, and of course that meant the best tutors worked inside the house, because we wanted to protect our assets. So I wasn't exactly the best, but it was still an accomplishment to even be a secretary there.

Some colorful language escaped Flint's mouth, but I chose to ignore it. I probably could have deducted points, had I been in his house, and it would have been pretty fun to ruffle his feathers, but alas, Prefects could only assign detentions to students who weren't in my house.

And although I was pretty much in control of who go which tutor, I couldn't really screw with Flint on the tutor board either. Professor Flitwick would know if I wasn't matching tutors to students as best I could. He always knew. He was kind of creepy that way. Nice guy and all, but damn, he knew just about everything that was going on in the school. I had a theory that he was the Cho Chang of the teachers.

There was a moment of awkward silence, until Cedric spoke up, "We were going to have a Captain's Meeting on the Quidditch Pitch morning after the feast, about 6:30."

"What's a Captain's Meeting?" I asked, feeling stupid once more. He acted as if it was something I should have heard about ages ago, but I'd read my Captaincy Letter twice, so I was pretty sure these 'Captain's Meetings' weren't anywhere in there.

Wood groaned, "Leave it to Davies to never tell the person he's going to appoint as captain anything about Captain's Meetings or setting schedules or anything."

Yeah, that did sound like Davies. He was always just barely on time to practice and had a very loose hold on practices. He'd always have us break up into groups, Chasers with the Keeper, the other Beater with him, and Cho on here own doing 'whatever', as he said.  
He was a fantastic Beater, but a lousy captain. We were able to come in second that season only because of talented individuals, not team work. We had been uncoordinated and out-of-sync with each other, and that hurt us.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Davies didn't show up to half the captain's meetings. And all his scheduling was just taking everyone else's leftovers. I don't think he had anything to tell her." Flint laughed. I pursed my lips and raised my eyebrow at him. His captaincy was a painful one, and as funny as it might have been, it wasn't funny to me.

Realization dawned on me, "So that's why we always got stuck with the 5:00 AM practices. I knew Davies didn't actually choose to practice that early. I even guessed that it was because he was too lazy to actually schedule them." I looked over to Cedric, casually saying, "When you go over to make out with Cho later, be sure to tell her she owes me a galleon. Can you believe she actually though Davies _chose_ to have practice that early? He'd always show up looking like a zombie and have to drink at least three cups of coffee to even be useful." I was in a much better mood now that my wallet would be a galleon heavier. It was almost as if the past two years were worth it. Almost.

His cheeks flushed bright red, "We aren't… It's not like… How did you know?" He finally managed.

"Please, Ced, the entire Quidditch team knows. Why do you think Avery punched you in the nose last year?"

"I thought he was mad at me for accidentally running into him during the game. Wait, was it because he fancies Cho?" Cedric asked horrified. That boy. He was too polite and nice for his own good.

"No way," I reassured him, "He just thought you were trying to seduce our Seeker so she couldn't play as well."

"I'm not, Annie, I promise, I am not trying to seduce anyone," Cedric answered earnestly. He looked practically horrified at the thought.

"Wait, Cedric, you're with a fourth year?" Flint asked, almost giggling. If you had asked him, he would have denied it, but I swear it was a giggle. Manly chuckle my ass. Cedric looked down, and I decided it was time to step and defend him. After all, he had just earlier done the same for me.

"Sorry, Flint," I leaned in closer and cupped a hand to my ear, "I couldn't hear you over that third year they found with you in a broom closet last year."

"I didn't know she was a third year, " he protested, "Diggory _knows_ she's a fourth year." His ears were turning pink and he was getting more defensive. Obviously didn't like a taste of his own medicine. Sucks for him.

"Yeah, he's really robbing the cradle there," I rolled my eyes.

"And you really trust Chang to keep her personal life separate from her Quidditch playing?" Wood asked, incredulous. He had kept pretty quiet up until this point, save for a few sharp exhales that I took to be laughs. I didn't really know what he found so funny, but evidently our conversation had been amusing.

I shrugged, "Why not? It's her life. Anyway, I'm trusting myself to manage Quidditch, Tutor Board, and being a Prefect." I paused, it hadn't hit me until then just how much I had signed up for this year. Could I really handle all of it? "We're Ravenclaws, we're used to working a lot harder than other houses." It was more to reassure myself than anything, but it hardened my determination. I was a Ravenclaw. Ravenclaws did lots of extra-curriculars. Ravenclaws took classes in the grade ahead. Ravenclaws were just supposed to be a cut above the rest. I was just being a good Ravenclaw.

"God you're pretentious," Flint complained. As if Slytherins were any better. Heck, they'd be even more pretentious than Ravenclaw if they were smart enough to be pretentious. I almost voiced that though aloud, but I guess it would have sounded pretty damn pretentious...

"You basically just described every single Ravenclaw," Wood laughed. It was a real laugh this time, not just puffing some air out his nose.

"What can I say, it's part of our charm," I replied easily. It was good; the discussion was no longer in the dangerous area of talking about Cho's relationship status. She would probably throw her textbooks at me until I died if she knew the Quidditch Captains were talking about her love life. But then again, with Cho it wasn't really a matter of if she found out, it was just a matter of when she found out.  
My money was on her library copy of Hogwarts: A History being the one to do me in.

~~/~~/~~

After some more idle chatter, which I tried to be a part of without shoving myself into the conversation and being obnoxious, Cedric looked at his watch, "I'm a Prefect too, we'd better get going to that meeting at the front of the train."

I took one last look at Flint and Wood, who were already breaking into there own conversation, "See you guys tomorrow, I guess."

Cedric and I didn't talk much as we walked down the train. It wasn't one of those awkward silences though. It was just silence, not tension, no unspoken feelings. I knew him, he knew me. We were in classes together, and though we may not have been friends, he was someone I knew in the dangerous sea of unknown quantities.

So I strode down the train hall confidently, my embarrasment and anxiety around the Head Boy and Girl and the Quidditch Captains forgotten. Cedric wasn't a friend, not really, but he was an ally, and sometimes that was much more important


End file.
